7 Percent Solution
by JohnWatson-Holmes
Summary: I drifted off back to sleep, knowing that no matter what he would be there to help pick up the pieces of my crumbling life again. Teen!lock. Slight AU. Sherlock POV


Euphoria, a blast of endorphins, the tell tale prick in my arm and the burn of the drug swimming through my blood stream. My eyes fluttered shut as I inhaled. I pulled the needle out of my popped vein and I deftly untied the tourniquet. I rested my head back on the couch and let the burn travel throughout my entire body. I pressed down on the needle mark to stop and blood from flowing out.

I could feel my mind start to haze, and then fog over completely. I let myself get lost in my thoughts and memories. The past years of my life came rushing back to me in an explosion of sensations. Sights, sounds, touches, smells, and tastes burst forth from my storm of a brain. They mixed together in a blender-like fashion.

I snapped my eyes open and stared down at my body. Ugly, horrendous, sickly, and most of all freak were the words that flashed before my eyes. I itched to get out of my clothes and see the truth of those words. Stumbling up from the couch, I began to pop the buttons of my school shirt. I threw it off onto the floor and made my way shakily into the bathroom.

My ribs jutted out from my chest, narrowing at my waist and promoting the hollow of my stomach. As I looked upon myself, all I could think was the word fat. My thoughts differentiated from other's thoughts. I saw the silvery, white scars of stabs wounds beneath my ribs from where I had been in a drug fight a few years earlier. I had been under the influence at that time too.

My arms were long and gangly. They were akin to the branches of a dead tree with my lanky bones. My elbows and shoulders were all sharp angels and points. Needle tracts littered my veins near the crooks of my elbows. Self harmed cuts and scars littered my wrists. The worst of all was the carving of the word 'FREAK' stuck out in raised, pink scars near my left breastbone. It rested right above my heart and glared at me through the mirror.

My glazed eyes housed purple-blue bags underneath them from overuse of drugs and lack of sleep. The dull blue-green of my irises around blown pupils made my image look ever worse. My hair was a mop of greasy curls on my head. My cheekbones stuck out in an alarming way and my cheeks hollowed in ever so slightly. My lips were chapped and cracking, looking a pale pink rose color in the lighting of the bathroom.

My legs were no better as I kicked off my trousers and underclothes. Dozens more scars scattered across my sparsely haired thighs. No other words were carved in, but the scars and recent wounds contained soul shattering stories and emotions. Emotions were something I never wanted to feel or experience ever again. I grimly realized that my whole body was trembling.

The euphoria had long worn off and now the drug was dwindling out of my system little by little. How long had I been standing there in that spot? Too long, I realized as my high went away. I realized with a panic that I had just taken my last dose. An icy feeling crawled across my skin and little bumps of gooseflesh rose.

"Sherlock?" a voice called to me from the room I had just been in. A twinge of worry laced their tone and I knew they had seen the needle. I was already panicked about a withdrawal, and now someone had caught me in the act. There could only be one person to catch me though, and they were one of the last people I would want to talk to. I reacted and violently slammed the door shut and locked it. I pulled my pants back on and fell with my back against the door.

"Sherlock!" the voice was more insistent now after hearing me. Footsteps thudded towards the door and I could feel every thump as though it were coming from my own heart. That could not possibly be though, seeing as my heartbeat was going a mile a minute and my blood pressure was high enough to cause me to be dizzy. The steps slowed until they were just outside of the bathroom door.

"Sherlock…?" the voice was now tentative, calmer than before and just hearing it brought tears to my eyes. "I know you're in there, please, open up," the voice spoke to me gently. Bile burned in my throat as the disgust of what I had done hit me.

"No!" I shouted out desperately, wrapping around myself and wanting to sink into the floor. I wanted a massive black hole to open up and swallow me down into it. Anything was better than having to face the man on the other side of the door. I came to another realization that my body was wrecked with sobs, the horrible noises emitting from my vocal chords for the world to hear.

"Sherlock, please," the tone was now pleading, even desperate. I slammed a fist down onto the tiled floor in frustration and furiously wiped at the tears pouring down my face. I did not want help. I did not want the comforting words and pity. I did not want him to see me so broken, so weak. I was so lost in myself. "Please," the word was spoken again and I gave in.

I reached a hand back and unlocked the door. I then proceeded to shuffle away and curl around myself against the far wall, facing with my back towards the door. My hands covered the scar on the left of my chest as I silently begged and pleaded for the tears to stop. The door creaked open slowly and the man stepped into the room. The door then closed quietly.

"Sherlock," the voice called to me this time, and I looked up through my tear blurred eyes. The man before me wore a deep frown on his face and is face crinkled with worry lines. His eyes held no loathing, but instead they help compassion and sorrow. "Come here," he said with a wave of his hand, sitting down and ushering me towards him.

"Mycroft," I sobbed out and crawled my way over to him before collapsing into his lap. His hands started carding themselves through my hair and rubbing at my back in an assuring way. I cried into his suit top and cling onto him for dear life as my body went on a roller coaster of emotions.

He always was at my side in these situations. He was there with me in the hospital when I needed to be stitched up. He was there holding my hand when I went through rehab for the umpteenth time. He pulled himself away from his own life to deal with mine, and for that I should be thankful. Instead, I just felt pathetic.

I stayed in his lap for the hours of the night and into morning, trembling and clinging desperately to him. His hands stayed, stopping the demons in my thoughts and protecting me from the hypothetical monsters. Soon enough, maybe when the sun first started to peek back up over the horizon, I fell asleep where I was. I know he had picked me up and carried me to bed, for when I awoke much later his hand was in mine while he lay beside me with a book in the other.

After one small glance up at him to assure he was really there, I drifted off back to sleep, knowing that no matter what he would be there to help pick up the pieces of my crumbling life again.


End file.
